Letter of Intent by Ursula Curtiss

Letter of Intent by Ursula Curtiss

published 1971

 

[excerpt from book] Celia… was well aware that the leopard coat might have been made for her instead of bought that morning at a charity thrift shop; in it, with her free and effortless walk, she drew more than an occasional following glance. In it she looked like someone who, if she worked at all, did it for fun.

Certain economies, she had discovered, were not only permissible but actually smart; she had encountered some astonishing women at the thrift shop. She had gone there in the assumption since adolescence that mink was the ultimate in furs, but in the only mink jacket available she had looked no one more unusual than a highly paid secretary.

But the leopard, shading from almost the colour of Celia’s hair to smoked gold among the thickening black, seemed less a new identity than the completion of one. It was slightly worn around the turned-back cuffs and the high collarless throat, but she could have the cuffs cut off, possibly, and a round collar made. She would say casually when Mary Ellen [her flatmate] asked, that she had just taken it out of storage.

 

comments: There were a number of American women writing great domestic thrillers in the second half of the 20^th century, and it can be hard to keep them straight, particularly as many of them were related to each other: Ursula Curtiss was a sister of Mary McMullen, and the daughter of Helen Reilly. (Curtis Evans has a great article on the family over at his blog The Passing Tramp.) Other blog regulars are Margaret Millar, Charlotte Armstrong, Helen McCloy, Jean Potts. Celia Fremlin was doing something similar in the UK to great effect.

I find them never less than enjoyable – and this one is an absolute banger. It is a little out of the usual run in that the protagonist, Celia, is not the putupon but feisty heroine who usually features. She is a madam on the make, entirely out for herself, and her journey from poverty to social success is compelling, and has us firmly on her side – even though she is totally immoral.

I was completely wrapped up in Celia’s story and powered through it – as I’m always saying, these writers managed to write short sharp books, and could teach some modern authors a thing or two about brevity. 

Celia goes into service, and to begin with is badly-dressed and not very attractive. But she is a quick learner, and seriously into self-improvement. She then starts attracting male attention. She is very good at her job too, and soon is a housekeeper to an elderly man, brought in by his relatives. Well we all know where that is going don’t we? But the plot isn’t always what  you think it is going to be, Curtiss is very clever.

We know from the beginning that Celia’s new life is under threat, she has had an anonymous and nasty letter: the bulk of the book is a flashback from that, with us and her wondering who exactly has emerged from her past to put her in jeopardy. (There are, it must be said, quite a few candidates: people whose lives have been changed by Celia and her little ways). The ending completely fooled me, and was wholly surprising and satisfying. The problem with these books – where you are rooting for the villain – is: how are you going to get the ending right? Celia is quite brutal, you can’t feel that she should get away with it. But still, we are invested in her, having journeyed alongside her. And Curtiss pulls it off nicely, I thought, I was nodding my head during the final pages.

She spells out the ways Celia learns, the social clues she picks up throughout, the extract above a good example. We see the way she completely discards her family, how the early achievements, the men attracted, which all seemed splendid to begin with, are quickly despised.

Celia is observant and clever, which helps steal another woman’s man. She suggests a walk during a country house weekend: she asks her hostess ‘Where’s a good place to go?’

‘right back to your chair’ said Mary Ellen with a horrified face…

…so Celia ends up going for a walk with the desirable David.

And also it is clear that this is a dog-eat-dog world – Celia will NOT get on without a lot or work and effort and smarts, everything is tilted towards the rich, those who already have. An early incident, where the son of the house snatches a kiss from Celia, is familiar from many books – Celia gets the blame and loses her job – but that really was how the system worked. (And, that’s the last time events pan out just as you think they will.)

And it’s obvious that the author has a stern view about the way the rich behave, and is also very satirical about, for example, rich women doing charitable social work. The League for America’s Deprived Youth, LADY, where Celia gets a job, is a particular joy.

Its executives were handsomely housed in two burgundy-and-grey floors of a midtown office building, and from some mystifying source – through caseworkers? – an actual Deprived Youth was produced and featured in a monthly newsletter… Much to her relief, Celia never saw a flesh-and-blood waif in all her tenure there.

LADY has its uses: when avoiding inconvenient questions about her background and family, Celia says

‘What’s really important is to recognize the especially happy parts of childhood while you’re having them, isn’t it?’ This poignant philosophy came straight out of a LADY newsletter, and was strangely unanswerable.

The book tells you a lot about what she learns about presenting herself:

Celia goes out in her ‘tailored raincoat’ and she ties ‘a scarf loosely at the nape of her neck  - anything knotted under the chin stripped away a whole generation of her forebears’.

She meets a potential flatmate who is casually dressed: ‘she wore a blue-and-white striped top and a pair of navy jeans into which a boy of ten could have fitted easily, but the magazine-tutored Celia recognized her sandals as imports.’ (the picture is Marianne Faithfull…)

Curtiss has a sharp, satirical and questioning view of the world, which I enjoyed hugely. This book is a little gem.

Celia is single-minded and ruthless and curiously charismatic. The reader ends up wholly on her side, and hoping her end won’t be too rough…So that reminded me of a favourite fictional character – Becky Sharp from WM Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. And as it happens there’s a new novel out now, an updating of Vanity Fair. There  will be another post… here.